Engineers in a WhatsApp group guide Nepal's rescue efforts for tunnels

A WhatsApp group of experts is leading rescue workers in the midst of a massive flash flood that occurred more than a month ago. They are searching for survivors inside the tunnels of destroyed hydropower plants.

Engineers'set up the messaging group before the wall of mud, water and rock crashed down the Trishuli Valley in Nepal on the 26th August. The group has become a 'valuable?tool in the search for survivors, alongside heavy machinery and helicopters.

Authorities hope that some of the 900 missing people from six hydropower plant - of which at least three were in construction - could have survived the flood because they had worked or fled into tunnels.

A lawmaker reported that two people survived the rescue from the Upper Trishuli 3A Hydropower Plant tunnel on Friday, just nine days after it was destroyed.

After the flood, it is difficult to find the entrances to the tunnels that were used to channel water, or access hydropower plants.

Send me layout drawings

A government official asked on Saturday for layout drawings of the Chilime Hydropower Plant in the Himalayan Valley near the Chinese border. Rescue workers were searching the buried remains.

A member of the group chat responded minutes later by sending details about the access tunnels and the powerhouse of the project.

This exchange, as well as others, was seen by more than 500 group members.

The Independent Power Producers' Association of Nepal said that at least eight people may be trapped in Chilime. An official from the Nepal Electricity Authority stated that 46 people could be trapped in Rasuwagadhi Hydropower Plant, located further south.

We spoke with a dozen people, including government officials, military officers, engineers, survivors, and the relatives of missing workers, who described efforts to search tunnel networks of the ruined 'hydropower plants.

The floods have altered the terrain and structure of the tunnels, and mud, rocks and soil had accumulated within," Nepal army spokesperson,?Raja Ram Basnet, said. "This isn't a normal closing of tunnels."

Images from Chilime on Monday showed flood debris reaching the ceiling just a few feet inside a large entrance tunnel.

Last week, a collapsed glacier caused a deluge that killed more than 1,200 people. Over 4,000 people remain missing, including those trapped in tunnels.

Rescue workers are also searching for five other hydroelectric plants in the valley. These were all part of a growing network of plants that supplied electricity to the country and exported the surplus. The flood destroyed 10% of Nepal's power generation capacity.

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Rescue workers at Rasuwagadhi Hydropower Plant reached 250 meters into a tunnel before discovering it blocked. They haven't given up on the search.

Amshu Kiran, a member of the board of the Nepal Electricity Authority said that they were trying to get inside again in order to search for victims. He added that 46 people may have been trapped within a chamber where there was food and water.

Unnamed manager of the Nepal Electricity Authority said that rescue workers also sought advice from former employees about the tunnel network via WhatsApp group. He said that the drawings on the group were useful.

Shahi stated that rescue workers had to wait almost six days for the Upper Trishuli 3A project tunnel entrance because it was buried. Rescue workers tried to inject oxygen into cavities before pulling out the survivors on Friday.

A photographer who flew over the site on Thursday witnessed excavators moving huge boulders out of the tunnel mouth and trying to get deeper into the tunnel.

Jan Jiwan Thakur is a civil engineering at Upper Trishuli 1 Plant. He said that a colleague had warned him about the flood just moments before it hit the valley. This gave him time to get to higher ground along with 100 other employees.

He said, "We ran towards the hillside, and after two or three minutes, when we looked down, it was all gone." "The flood debris covered our entire office area."

Dhan Bahadur Tahmang describes escaping from the same plant through a tunnel when the flood struck, sending pipes and equipment inside. He and others were able to find a way out of the tunnels with his knowledge. However, he said that he saw dead bodies on his journey.

Members of 'the engineers WhatsApp group' shared the names and mobile numbers of missing workers with government officials, asking them to?relay these to telecom authorities to try to locate their last recorded location.

While family members wait for news about missing loved ones like Rajesh, whose son Rajish is a 30-year-old environmental engineer in Upper Trishuli 1

"Whenever I look out, I see him carrying a backpack and coming home just like he used to," Shrestha said, who runs an atelier that makes window grills.

"I'm surviving by the hope that he returns."

(source: Reuters)